Lunk

Looking to get my annual meteorite fix, I recently embarked on a 3-day detecting trip to the famous Franconia meteorite strewn field in the beautiful Mohave desert of sunny Arizona. I arrived at my destination late afternoon and set up camp, which basically just consisted of parking my truck. Following a typical gorgeous desert sunset, the stillness of the night under the sky's star-filled canopy lent itself to the other-worldly ambience of camping in the midst of rocks from space. The following morning found me hiking into the heart of the strewn field, swinging the mighty Zed across a seemingly endless landscape of ridges and washes infested with basalt hot rocks. Undeterred after an half-hour with no targets, I finally received a signal at the base of a ridge that turned out to be a small 4 gram stony meteorite fragment. Slowly working my way upslope proved unsuccessful; that is until I topped the ridge and began hunting the wide, nearly level surface that stretched out before me. As I was skirting around a creosote bush with the detector coil, the GPZ 7000 sounded off with a sharp response. Pinpointing with the edge of the search coil revealed a sizable meteorite looking up at me - a sweet 68 gram beauty! Careful grid searching of the area soon produced another nice stone, this one weighing in at a hefty 53 grams. A few small irons were also unearthed, rounding out a perfect day in the strewn field. Detecting the surrounding area during the next two days netted a nice 13 gram stone, several irons, including a spectacular 8 gram piece (my second largest from Franconia), and numerous small stones and fragments. As always, a thoroughly enjoyable and productive Franconia trip. The total take is pictured below, with 156 grams of stony meteorites (above scale cube} and 14 grams of irons.

Randy, PM sent.

Hey Gerry, you better be nicer to Chef Rusty, or you’re going to be eating Top Ramen and Cheese Whiz at the next outing...

Not many combos are worse than gold fever and cabin fever; been there, done that!🤣

Chet, I have since lowered my threshold to 27/28; it's not nearly as intense and the target responses are more distinct.

Dogodog, I will do a guided meteorite hunt in Arizona. PM me for details.

Just use one of these on your detector, kac. 🤣

Then try it by having someone hide the wrench so that you can't see it and don't know where it is.

Mohave Mountains actually, although the range was originally named Chemehuevi. Found the nugget on the HGS club claims years ago as a member. There are multiple radio towers on nearby Crossman Peak, so EMI has always been a nuisance there, in addition to the numerous hot rocks. Cancel mode wasn’t required, but it sure was a good way to cover ground faster, looking for a tip-off nugget to a new patch; then it was time to swap out the DD for a mono and start gridding. The GPZ is much better at handling the EMI than the GPX; in fact, it’s not even an issue. But HY/Normal lights up the hot rocks at depth, so switching to Gen/Diff eliminates them totally.

Just want to make it very clear here that I don't have, nor have I used, a GPX 6000; like others, I've merely put it in my “Gear Used” as coming soon, as we are all excited to own one as soon as it is released.

It's already listed in my “Gear Used”, if that any clue.😎

!Las pepitas de oro son hermosas; felicidades!

Sorry, can’t make any promises! 🤗

Totally worth the effort...WTG!

Agreed GC, I'm just saying that it would be nice to have an optional 8” or 6” elliptical for the really tight spots. But getting back on topic, IMO Minelab are so far ahead of the other detector manufacturers in technology and production, that I don't see how they can have any real competition with the GPX 6000.

Especially with the inflated coil prices these days; the same amount of money that buys a 14”x9” NF Evo used to get you a Coiltek 27”x21” Bonzer. I was delighted when the GPZ 7000 was released because the stock coil found gold of all sizes at depth, eliminating the need for a coil arsenal; the only exception being the lack of a small coil for tight spots and heavy scrub, which appears is also going to be the same deficiency on the upcoming GPX 6000, with the 11” round mono coil being the smallest offering.

Needless to say, I'm quite stunned that you were able to find the one nugget I saved for you out there, Gerry, and that you skunked the Lunk to boot!😀 Always a great time detecting with you, amigo.

If nothing else, it will certainly be the light weight patch hunting P.I. many of us have been waiting for from any manufacturer.

I'm out of likes for the day, Flak, so here ya go: 👍

I've also used the cancel mode with a DD on the GPX series machines to great effect in EMI and hot rock infested conditions in search of nuggets, like this 29 gram chunk found at a depth of 12 inches. And sure, the signal wasn’t as strong as it would have been in straight DD mode or by running a mono loop, but it was still noticeable because the threshold was smooth as glass, with no variations to mask the target.

Interstellar grains found in Australian meteorite: https://www.livescience.com/oldest-material-on-earth.html

Didn't anybody notice the asteroid of pure gold in the teaser video?! Forget the new detector; I'm saving my money to buy a seat on the next SpaceX passenger rocket to Mars, then hopping on a shuttle to the asteroid belt! Now where did I put that rock hammer? 🤩🤪

Got a link from Minelab in my email inbox a little while ago:

EL NINIO77, can you please post a link to this information? Enquiring minds want to know! 🙂

Spectacular find, congrats!